Never warmed much to Soulfly, but am I understanding this correctly that they're playing "Roots Bloody Roots" in it's entirety? If so, I'll definitely be in for that. Nostalgia factor back to my college days, if nothing else.

If the next clue somehow isn't Voyager (from Australia), I'm going to be hugely disappointed. "The Meaning of I" and "V" were both brilliant albums.

For a WordPress site? Hahaha. Haha. Ha. OMG. You're too funny. One can only hope lots of people are needing to hold off for whatever reason. This does actually feel like very little heads-up. I'm gonna have to park it in one of the "phone booths" at work and completely shut down Slack.

I think we're in for lots of crashes again.

The booking pages is on a separate domain, book70000tons.com, this year, so maybe they have done something to avoid the site kneeling.

Oooh! Good catch! I hope that does help some things. I'm sure that between that system getting some changes and the deck plan stuff, UMC have been pretty busy. It would probably be better for them if they were more straight-forward about it instead of posting tone-deaf replies to people bitching on FB.

I'm excited for Soulfly doing Roots, shit. That's awesome.

I'm definitely in the festival for the vacation and friends and all of that. The music is important, but the line-up isn't a deal killer for me unless it goes full-weenie some year or something. Theeeeen I don't knoooooow...

Roots is my favorite SEPULTURA album and this show was on my wishlist 2 years ago, so yay.
Interestingly, back then Max and Iggor toured with THE BLACK DALIAH MURDER, COMBICHRIST and ALLEGAEON, so here’s hoping for the last 2 as well.

Okay, I'm a newbie and was hoping to get onboard this year, but it looks like, I'm wasting my time. What are the chances of any suites being left for the general public sale.

What the other guys already said. But in all seriousness, if you can't find a Survivor to get in a cabin with, book a single ticket instead of waiting/hoping for a cabin - get your spot on the boat, wherever it may be. It really doesn't matter where your bed is... if you're like me and 90% of the rest of the boat, you'll only use your room to sleep, which itself will be a rare occurrence. Why book a big room when you're never in there?

Their question asked specifically about suites. If anything IS available at public sales, it will be suites and the more expensive options.

I do see the appeal for balcony suites for those who smoke, though.

Not that anyone should feel encouraged by this completely hypothetical thread to violate the cruise line's policy of no smoking on balconies.

This lineup is indeed exceptional (but not for the reasons we were hoping for, kind of the opposite), and I did shit my pants (also for unrelated reasons ).
My wife, who is always right (!), thinks that they might be going crescendo this year, to avoid a “gold rush”.
Gold members have a full nine days to vote with their pocketbook, so I guess it’s an observation phase - if sales are slow, increase the announcement level.

70k charters the boat ,the price per cabin is based on the cost of taking the boat out of service for a normal cruise.Royal Caribbean needs to factor in the lost revenue from a typical cruise for things such as the high profit items lost (diamond sales,spa treatments,high end meal purchases etc.).Also the cruisers are responsible for buying all the cabins but only 3,000 in number,you are paying for every band member,lighting,sound,helping with the discount cabins to press ,buying 70k employees cabins etc.Alcohol sales are great and all but it is a much lower profit item than other things lost.The taxes and fees aren’t discounted because 70k prices are fixed ,Royal Caribbean’s revenue sharing with 70k probably dictates the cost of cabins also.For example this year the higher end cabins had a larger increase than other cabins,those cabins are most likely paid in full and they believe that they can still sell them with the higher prices this year.There is probably some capacity reached level say 85% that 70k gets best terms possible,and than after that Royal Caribbean makes more money,at lower capacity Royal Caribbean might subsidize 70k at bit.At some level the cruise is a bust but goes forth anyway (see Barge to Hell).

2012-14 Survivor
2015-16 Abandoned Ship
2017 Returned
2018 Got a bad feeling about this Abandon Ship
2019 This is Fucking Ridiculous
2020 Bands ,what bands boat is all that matters

even if the most important for me are not the bands....they were there several times,
well anyway, the journey would be great again, if we participate, i am not sure.. lot of money again..for low-mid lewel bands ..
no new bands so far..repeats and repeats and who did not see the accept band already too many times....lol

And UMC didn't change the booking process even after Andy himself said the system no longer worked (and he's right). I'm sure they have picked the announcement order purposefully. Especially with a good chunk of repeats. I bet they are hoping it discourages some Survivors from booking, while still being decent enough to make people interested. - Ti7aNiC

I mean, logically, the longer the boat is a festival, the more "repeats" we'll have every year. But even with that, it seems I'm being proven right. We'll know for sure if once we hit Public sales we see some quality "new" boat bands. Then the cripper bands always seem to come near the end, too.

Why are repeats so terrible? Seems logical that some bands will necessarily be repeats after 9 years. I don't mind seeing a good band multiple times. I'm sure nobody would mind if one's own personal favorite would be on board every year. As Ti7aNiC says, the older 70k gets as a festival the more repeats will be on the boat.

Also I would guess that the quality of announcements will remain more or less the same also after gold sales. Perhaps the other bands will suite personal tastes better, but the mixture of repeats and new band and the overall objective quality (thus price ) of the bands will be constant. Seems to be the case for the line ups of the last couple of years at least.

Why are repeats so terrible? Seems logical that some bands will necessarily be repeats after 9 years. I don't mind seeing a good band multiple times. I'm sure nobody would mind if one's own personal favorite would be on board every year. As Ti7aNiC says, the older 70k gets as a festival the more repeats will be on the boat.

And you're right, nothing wrong as long as it's a diverse lineup of bands that are good live. And we're getting there. Though I can explain some of what the "problem" people are posing with repeats is.

Example, I live in Calgary, a city that only gets about half the North American tours (or less). This is why I like to go on 70k, because I get to see bands that rarely tour North America. In fact, it's what great about 70k in general - oftentimes, bands will book an NA tour to coincide with the cruise, so you'll get to see them even more. Reason #1 why new bands is always better - more great bands to tour NA.

That all being said, I've seen Ensiferum (whom I think are not great live), Arkona, Eluveitie, and even DELAIN (who I don't enjoy AT ALL) multiple times. If you're a regular concert attendee, which you probably are if you're going to a metal festival, you're in the same boat as me. In fact, you're probably more likely to have seen these bands MORE than I have, because you don't live in landlocked Prairie Canada where everyone thinks no one lives (they're wrong by the way, I know at least 50 people in my city alone who attend the cruise yearly).

..
no new bands so far..repeats and repeats and who did not see the accept band already too many times....lol

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought Persefone, Tiamat and The Black Dahlia Murder are new, or at least they haven't been on any of the cruises I've been on, so they're new to me. Max and Igor playing Roots is also new.

Last edited by doomguy on Wed Sep 05, 2018 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think I might not be used to the extreme distances you guys in NA have to travel for concerts. We are very lucky in that regard in my region. First of all I have the Z7, a very good concert venue where a lot of the announced bands have already played, in 20 minutes distance. I have other major cities, like Zurich or Bern within an hour. Larger German cities like Stuttgart or Munich within easy drive distance. So yeah, it is rare that a band is touring Europe and I don't find a venue close to me.

Might also be why I'm not so sensitive about bands that I already know. Hey, I've seen Ensiferum in May in the aforementioned Z7 and Eluveitie last year during a free concert in Basel. Elu played in the Z7 this year together with Epica and Excelsis. I missed them because I was at a Scout summer camp (I'm a Scout chief). We actually tried to book them for an unplugged concert during around our camp fire. They responded and regretfully declined due to scheduling conflicts.

I don't mind repeats. I've seen Behemoth 5 times and never on the boat, for example.

Oh, that's worth it. Behemoth on the boat are fucking magical.

And like I said, nothing wrong with some repeats. Just, when they're a band that you only sorta like that you've seen five times? Not that exciting. Some bands are BETTER on the boat though - I saw Grave Digger in my city and they were Fine™, but on the boat they have so much more energy.